Idiosyncrasies
by Shauds02
Summary: Bruce is "dead" apparently, and multiverse hopping can kind of screw with a guy's head, who'd have thought. Instead of going off the rails, Jason decides to take a break from the whole capes and masks game to try being normal for a couple months. He thinks he's doing pretty well, until the new Batgirl finds him, declares he's doing normal wrong, and appoints herself his teacher.
1. Compromised

Tim brining Jason into the cave had been kind of crazy and, depending on who you were talking to, more than just **kind of**. If Steph hadn't wandered down there looking for Cass, she would have never known about it. Jason must have known when she followed him out, just to make sure he wasn't going to set off some secret **kill everyone** command on the path.

When he went right for a rundown motel smack between Gotham proper and the suburbs, Steph willing to leave it alone. She had bad experiences with crimelords, as she was not going to be repeating that mistake again by trying to take Jason Todd on alone when all he was doing was breaking some already mostly broken furniture.

The he'd gone and bought a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and she wasn't going to be responsible for a bomb going off in Wayne Enterprises either.

And that was how she'd ended up in the ruins of the motel room with definitely bruised ribs, her staff held out before her like a shield, with a pissed off, bloody nosed Red Hood three feet away from tuning those into **broken** ribs.

She would have preferred her second 'death' hadn't been over cosmetics, all she could hope for was that something of the experience would carry over to her next life and she'd be all the wiser for it.

Figured that just two seconds after she'd resigned herself to her fate, Jason went and did the last thing – barring dressing up in a panda onesie and fighting crime as Pandaman, but he was crazy so that wasn't all that out of the question, now was it? – that she would have expected from him.

Jason sighed, his shoulders losing all their mid fight tension and sagging down. He dropped the knife he'd been twirling menacingly at her only seconds before to embed itself in the stained floorboards with a hollow _thunk_, then wiped the blood off his face and waved a dismissive hand at her as he walked by.

Not towards her as she'd thought he would when she readied to strike out again, but past her, for the only piece of furniture in the room that was still standing; a couch covered in glittering glass from Steph's very impressive window entry.

"Um, hello. Bat in your motel room here." Steph waved a hand at herself when he brushed the glass away and sat down. "Arentya s'posed to try and crush my skull or something?"

"Fun as that would be." What she could see of his smile past the arms he had obscuring his face was bitter, just the barest upturn of his lips, a sliver of his teeth showing through. "No. Arrest me if you want, I'm done."

"Done?" Steph blinked at him and slipped out of her fighting stance, brining her feet together with a crunch of glass, as she hugged her staff to her chest.

"Need a hearing aid there Blondielocks?" His voice was a little tight, tired, and she couldn't tell if that was because he was putting on an act, or because the act was what he'd given up on.

"Uh…" She waited for him to move, to laugh diabolically and slice at her with another hidden knife.

All he did was sit there, hunched over with his hands fisted in his badly bleached blonde-red-black hair, looking a whole lot smaller than he was.

Steph didn't arrest him

**000**

"What do you mean you didn't arrest him?" Oracle didn't so much as tilt her head in Steph's direction, too busy monitoring the various feeds scrolling by on her many screens.

Steph could have said it was because she hadn't had back up and being torn to pieces hadn't been on the day's agenda. She could have said it was because he could have changed his mind halfway through and wouldn't that have put any cops involved in danger? Hell, she could have even been petty and said if they wanted him in prison so badly, they should have given Tim the job since, when all was said and done, he **was** the one who'd broken Jason out of prison.

"'Cause he was just, it's not like he was **doing** anything." Steph said instead. Well, vandalism was something, but the motel could have probably used the insurance or whatever. That, and the abomination he'd made of his hair, she could have arrested him for that.

Oracle sighed and spun her chair around to where Nightwing was leaning near the single window in the room, looking out at the brightly lit city. "Dick, could you…? She trailed off, making a circular motion with her hand.

"I **know** you haven't forgotten that I'm in charge of an assassin child who may or may not try playing right of succession with Tim, who's talking about picking up the cowl, right?" He pressed the back of his head against the wall, and Steph began to wonder if there was any vigilante left in Gotham who wasn't just plain tired anymore.

"Well, **someone** has to do something about him before we have even more to worry about." Oracle said. "What, you're going to sic Tim on him?"

"I'm going to get Tim out of that suit, you have your own birds, why don't you…"

"Uhm, did none of you just hear me?" Steph asked, if they were going to call her in for some kind of meeting, she would have hoped they could have at least **listened** to her instead of having their little game of hot potato right here.

"That the king of being emotionally compromised is even more compromised that usual. We heard you just **fine** Stephanie."

Oracle pressed a thumb and forefinger against her eyelids, tipping her glasses from the bridge of her nose.

"Yeah well, how's he s'posed to be?" Steph asked looking between the two most senior members of the vigilante family she hadn't been allowed to be a part of for the longest time. "Didn't his dad die too?" Both turned their heads from her as though she'd lit a flare in their faces. They were supposed to be the ones who **knew** what they were doing, but they didn't seem particularly **un**compromised either. "Would it be better if he didn't care?"

"I just don't have the time." Nightwing found a way to lock eyes with Steph, through both of their masks. "We just need him out of the way until someone does, so he doesn't do anything we can't overlook, we'll help him too, just..." he let out a deep breath, puffing out his cheeks like a blowfish as he did so, "not now."

"So can't someone just, like, watch him and make sure he's not stocking up on explosives or whatever?" Steph asked. "It's better than risking pissing him off by trying to lock him up, right?" Steph cocked her head at Oracle. "I really don't think he's gonna be all, 'you can arrest me', again."

"And that's why you should have done it the first time, we have too much on out plates to deal with this too." Oracle said, frowning at Steph. "There's no way we could do it via surveillance equipment or we'd be monitoring him already, and there is no one in Gotham who'd be willing to do it in person. Even with the risks, prison…"

"What if **I** did it?" Steph spat it out before she had the time to consider either what it was she was saying, or the consequences of cutting off the almighty Oracle.

"No." Nightwing said, just that, not even a second's hesitation to hint that he'd considered it at all.

"Why not?" Steph wasn't a kid, she didn't stamp her foot, but she did stand up a little taller and cross her arms.

"Because you've made it pretty clear you wouldn't be able to handle him." Oracle put her glasses back on and twirled back to her computers. "You can go home for now and…"

"Well you've all made it pretty clear you can't handle him either." Steph looked up to the lights set in the ceiling so she didn't have to look at their reactions. Damn, Cass was going to toss her out of a window. How rarely Steph saw Cass lately, that might actually have counted as a desirable interaction at that point. She thought she saw Nightwing quirk his lips, but it came and went too fast for her to be sure. "I mean, I did get him to surrender once, but t's not like that counts for anything."

"Fine." Oracle said, and Steph's eyes snapped back to her, Nightwing opened his mouth, whether to object or add something, but Oracle gestured for him to stop before he got it out. "**You** watch him, and whatever he does from now until we can deal with him, it's on you."

"Fine." Steph said, uncrossing her arms and refusing to turn her head from the woman's steely glare. Too deep in to back out now, not an unfamiliar position for her at all, she could handle watching someone just fine.

"Now go home, and get some rest." Oracle said. "While you can."

Almost as soon as Steph turned to leave, Nightwing closed the distance between him and Oracle, and their burst of indecipherable harried whispering followed her out.

Yeah, Steph thought, pulling up her hood and stamping down the relentless burning in her chest with every step, she'd handle this just fine.

**000**

The laundromat wasn't very quiet that time of week, Jason wasn't sure he could handle crowded right then, wasn't sure what he'd do if there were other people around him right then. Other people like the girl who thought she was in any way hard to spot in the café across the street and a pawnshop over.

She'd been following him for a couple days now. He'd been wryly amused at first, had thought, would Bruce take full responsibility if Jason bled them both dry right then, if he'd hidden their corpses in the dust of one of the deeper recesses of the cave?

Then he'd realized what he'd been thinking, and he was almost afraid that Bruce actually **might** have, him and his stupid self-righteous fucking…

After that, the girls attempt at being covert in trailing him wasn't amusing anymore, not at all. Every time she closed the distance between them by even a little, he'd seize up. Every glimpse of purple around the corner made him almost glad to not have a gun on him.

Wayward and self-destructive path… Jason had never thought of himself as self-destructive, he'd never been wayward, he'd known what he was doing, he'd so carefully planned it out, all of it. He'd set thing's in motion that Bruce would have never allowed himself to dream of, he'd been focused on the path he'd set for himself, and he'd been determined to see it through. How did that meet any definition of wayward?

_To follow one's own capricious, wanton or depraved inclinations._

The other Bruce hadn't done that. Hadn't called wayward, hadn't called him broken, or told him he'd needed therapy. He would have understood, he had understood what kinds of sacrifices that needed to be made, and he'd made them. **His** earth had been a fucking paradise. Jason can still remember the rush that had come from crushing that Joker's fucking skull with a concrete block, he can hear the crunching, can feel the shallow vibrations it had sent up through his arm. The other Bruce would have understood, but that Bruce had been dead by then, because the Joker…

Jason took a handful of his clothes and jammed them into the washer with a lot more force than was necessary. He didn't need to have hours of his life wasted with one of Alfred's old war buddies, talking about shit that didn't matter anymore. Just because Bruce thought every decision Jason had made in his life had sprung forth from one thing that happened before he'd even…

He didn't need it. What he needed was to get out there and prove that, that he knew what he was doing and **why** he was doing it.

The girl was still there.

Jason bit back a curse and tried to focus or the rhythmic turning on the machine, the colorful blurs that were his clothes turning clockwise then counter-clockwise, then clockwise, then counter…

"Shit." He bit out the curse under his breath, slipped in a coin to start up the next machine, then stomped outside. Next time he needed a laundromat he was going to one with no loiter worthy spots within seeing distance.

She didn't react overly when she spotted his approach, didn't jump up or pull out a weapon when he planted his hands on her table.

"The fuck are you trying to do here?" He growled down at her.

"I'm s'posed to watch that you don't destroy any more private property, or public property, or just y'know, preferable don't destroy any property at all?" She looked at him over the top of her newspaper, bright blue eyes peeking at him above a headline detailing the hijacking of a bus that had left half the passengers at the mercy of Gotham's medical system.

"Watch." Jason sneered. "And what would you do if I did? You gonna poke at me with your stick again, call for backup? Think they'll get here before you're another **smear** on the sidewalk?"

"Rude, I got lots more'n a stick." Her voice was more or less even, but her knuckles were white where she gripped the paper, and he could feel her scanning him for potential weapons. As though he'd need any for something like this. Just more proof that they didn't know what they were doing, didn't see these kids as anything but expendable cannon fodder. "Your hair looks kinda awful just by the way."

"Yeah, you got a stick **and** your sparkling personality." He said, keeping his voice low and refusing to acknowledge her jibe. "Dick send you cause they run out of sidekicks they care about? What, you get a nice pat on the head for following you fucking orders? A fucking funeral package? Or maybe you just never had a damned choice in what they send you to die for."

There was a couple at the table barely a couple of meters away, watching them, not close enough to hear what they were saying, but close enough that they could tell the interaction was less than friendly. They probably though that the worst thing that could happen here was a mugging, that of they were unlucky enough, there might be a kidnapping or something. Not that if Jason had a weapon on him, he might have done something much, much worse, because those fucking bats couldn't deal with their paranoia themselves.

Jason pushed of the table, and pushed the images of blood and the smell of ash and the hollow, wet sound the Joker's head had made when Jason had caved it in with a cinderblock out of his head. He didn't need therapy.

"In case you're wondering." There was the scraping of her chair and Jason froze. "No one told me to do this, I volunteered."

He swallowed the dry feeling in his throat, and went back to the laundromat. He didn't need… He needed to get away from everything.

**000**

She lost him. Steph took a few hours off from watching him to give him time to cool off and maybe not look at her like he wanted to shove her into a meat grinder, and she lost him. Every place she'd seen him head to, every security feed that could have picked his departure up. He'd even left his damned laundry in the washer, and the owner had made Steph take the stuff when she'd tried to search it.

She couldn't find Jason anywhere. Maybe she shouldn't have insulted his hair, or maybe she should have tried a better fucking hiding place.

"Monitor the Red Hood." She groaned and pressed her head against the cool glass of the laundromat. Damnit, Oracle was going to tear her apart when she found out about this.


	2. The Glitter Incident

The museum was a quiet place at night, granted it was mostly quiet during the daytime too, a good place to sit around thinking if you were looking for a place to think. If you weren't looking to think, well, nothing in the world was easier to fill than a silence.

He wasn't looking to think right then, had, in fact, come to the conclusion some while ago, that the less scattered thinking he did the better off he'd be. So he hummed a tuneless song to the beat of his steps echoing through the museum as he made his rounds. The beam of his flashlight illuminated each exhibit one at a checking that they were all in their places, that the security measures were active.

They weren't. Some idiot had gone and tripped the silent alarm. Far as he could tell, they were still in lobby, making enough noise to echo down a lot louder than his footsteps. Night guards were at best, paid hostages for if the bats found time in their busy schedules to stop something like a museum heist anymore. He was willing to bet the dumbass who'd planned this had already sent someone out to tie up the poor, underpaid night guard.

Right on cue, the next corner he turned, he was yanked up off the ground by the front of his shirt by a giant of a man dressed in all black.

"I'm legally required to ask if you have a pacemaker." He said before the big guy had a chance to get a word in. Only answer he got was a head tilted in confusion. Well, he'd asked. The guard shrugged as well as he could in the hold, then he rammed his stun gun into the guy's ribs and with a flick of his finger, unleashed electric hell.

His feet has just touched the ground, followed shortly by the collapse of his convulsing attacker when another came from behind and got a handful of his jacket, that guy got a roundhouse kick to the gut that sent his skidding across the smoothly polished checkered tiles. Really, what was with these guys and always going for his clothes?

Straightening aforementioned clothes, the guard approached the guy he'd kicked across the hall, pausing only briefly to scoop up the flashlight he'd dropped. It took him under a minute to have both of them cuffed and most definitely out for either the rest of the night, or until cops got off their fat, useless asses and got themselves to the museum for pickup.

As fun as it was to let them find him first, the sounds reverberating through the museum were becoming more than a little concerning. He did have a job to do, and just going off the quality of the goons assigned to catch him; these guys weren't professional enough to know how to handle the antiques they were trying to steal. So much as a chip and who would be blamed? The Night guard, that was who. Well, him and the overseer who hadn't listened about those laser cages, but that dumbass would have deserved it, because come on, lasers? Those were among the easiest securities to short out.

By the time he got there, the gaggle of would be burglars has already deactivated the laser systems, a and were in the process of shoving the collection of fourteenth century silver wear into a duffle bag like it was a jumble of common tin cutlery. Old meant **fragile** and next to impossible to replace. They couldn't have stolen something from a modern arts exhibit?

"Hey." He didn't bother sneaking up on them. "Museums are for **looking**, do yourselves a favor and go rob a jeweler's." Jewelers' had insurance; no amount of money would replace a six hundred year old decorative sword if these guys melted it down for scraps.

"Shut him up 'fore he calls the cops." Not even a backwards glace and they went the, 'attack the guard,' route instead. Not that he was complaining about it, but as his fist found a nose that would never be straight again after this, he was glad that his faith in humanity was pretty much nonexistent already. No room for him to be disappointed by the usual stupidity of Gotham's criminal element.

"Cops already called, Professor." The guard said when driving his knee into a solar plexus brought his face close enough for his words to carry through the screaming.

The two remaining, stepped over their fallen associate, the one without a broken nose, got his gun out first, so he got his hands crushes by the guard's heavy duty flashlight first. The other tried to use his gun as a club, see not very professional, and didn't have the time to rectify his mistake before he got an elbow to his already broken nose and an uppercut to his jaw.

"And that's a wrap folks." He spread his arms out and hopped over one of the groaning bodies, kicking the gun further away as he moved towards the windows to get a look at the sirens he heard growing nearer. "Bet I get a bonus for this."

There was a scuffle behind him, he spun on his heel, expecting there to have been a sixth burglar that he'd missed and got a heel to his gut that had him spinning even further, knocking the uniform cap off his head and sending him crashing into the nearest wall. Before he could even process what had happened he was on the floor, breath knocked out of him.

"Ouch." He missed body armor, and he was changing out the shoes for ones with better grip first thing in the morning, he could always take them off and slide around in his socks when he didn't need the friction. But first, he raised his swimming head to get a look at this new opponent he'd stupidly had his guard down for. He got into these kinds of habits, and when he got back on the streets, he was a dead man.

"Oh my God, I am **so** sorry." Yeah, she sure sounded concerned, crouched in front of him within seconds, holding out his cap in offering. "The surveillance is out and thought you were a…" she froze, going still as the statues over at the Greek exhibit when she her eyes locked with his. "Jason?"

"Batgirl," he snatched his cap from hands of the newest bearer of that specific cowl got to his feet.

"You're here… what are you **doing** here?" Concern gone, now she sounded more like she was spoiling for a fight.

Great, Jason bit back the groan that was building behind his throat. "Working." He said and gripped Broken-Hands goon by his armpits to start dragging him to the others he'd left in the lobby, ready for the cops. "Now go away, crisis averted, you can go watch a warehouse explode or something."

He got halfway down the hall before her quick, not-light-enough footsteps caught up to him.

"Hey, what are you doing here, are they, like, smuggling drugs in the paintings, or is there a conspiracy in the paintings, or…" She planted herself in his path, hands on her hips, "you're here to assassinate some museum loving crimelord aren't you?"

"Nope." Jason tried to keep his tone light, to keep his frustration from bleeding in while he dragged his goon past her fast as he could.

Couple seconds later and she was back in his path, same hands-on-hips stance as before, like she thought it made her look authoritative. "Then what **are** you doing?"

"**Working**." He repeated with a huff as he tossed Broken-Hands on top of the other two, then turned to head back to the middle-ages exhibit. "Now asks me that again, so I can give you that exact same answer again."

"Okay," she said spreading out her arms to block the door, a smile that might have signaled genuine amusement, had there not been so much apprehension behind it, curled on her lips. "What are you doing here?"

Jason blinked at her, she cocked her head to the side, her chin upturned in… a challenge? Really? "I work here." He repeated, yet again, and tried to duck under her arms so he could finish the cleanup.

"Yeah, and Robin's a natural blonde." She got halfway through jabbing one of her fingers against his chest before she pressed the hand against the wall again. " What are you planning, Todd?"

"Ooh, ya know my last name, how sure I am to listen to you now." He batted her hand away and hurried past her. "And that's just a variation of the same question."

"So give me variation of an answer, but a variation that makes sense, maybe?"

He was tempted, sorely tempted to say he was planning on building kryptonite bombs and laying them out in the parking lot to catch superman or something, but he doubted very much she'd see the humor in that. "I'm **planning** on getting these guys outta her fast as possible so I can clear the next level of candy crush."

"I don't believe you."

"I don't care."

"Oh, c'mon, the last time I saw you, you said I was gonna die which, coming from you has some pretty terrifying implications, and now you got nothing to monologue?"

"Die if ya want, it's none of my business." He hefted up the bigger of the remaining goons and slung the other over his shoulder. Hard to believe she'd found it all that terrifying with the way she was stomping after him now.

She muttered something about his strength level when he walked past her again, then shook her head. "And it was your business before? Or is Batgirl above your criticism, far as I heard, ya never went after C… the other one either." She sounded offended, like him just genuinely not giving a damn any more was somehow an affront, and what would he have criticized an apparently perfect fighter for anyway?

Jason stopped himself and counted to ten under his breath, then with a heavy sigh, he turned to look at her, dragged his eyes over the new Batgirl's suit, he could come up with half a dozen things to criticize, but he settled for just two. "You gonna keep your hair that long, ya shoulda at least tucked it into your suit, and the full face covering was better, less chance of breathing in the Rogue of the week's airborne toxins, maybe some more armor?..." A lot more armor, if only for the sake of whoever was stuck stitching that thing up every time she got it torn.

"Did you just… criticize me like it's a **chore**." She muttered running a hand through her bright hair, features gone from affronted to bemused in the matter of a moment.

Jason shrugged and kept going. "And this is why I don't bother." He dumped the would-be defilers of his perfect record and rolled his shoulders to ease the strain carrying their asses had put on them. "You gonna leave now?"

"Why, you want some privacy to shoot those guys?" She asked, folding her arms.

No, that would have gotten him fired, but Jason didn't bother trying to explain that. "The cops will be here in a couple minutes. You really wanna be here for that?"

"Why not? We got a good working relationship."

"Yeah, maybe they'll cut you down when I hang you from your cape."

He would have, but he wasn't risking his captives getting out of his sight just to get into it with Batgirl, he didn't want to have to explain to the overseer **why** he'd kicked her out of the museum if the surveillance system went back on anyway. He'd been through worse, he could handle standing in a room for five minutes. Still, he had to count to more than just ten to keep himself calm.

"So… candy crush?" She looked up at him after only a couple seconds of silence. "I can't figure out how to get past level five-three-four."

Jason sighed and pulled his cap to shield a little more of his eyes from her. He wasn't talking to Batgirl about candy crush because he didn't want to talk to Batgirl. It had nothing to do with the fast that he was close to rage quitting and hadn't gotten anywhere near that far.

**000**

"Your hair looks a lot better than last time." She ventured while the cops dragged the burglars up and out to the waiting patrol cars.

Jason hastily stopped running his hand through his hair and slapped on his cap to hide the red locks from view. "Don't talk to me." He'd already had a shock blanket laid over his shoulders by those useless bastards, he was **required** to give a statement before he could lock himself in his office until they all left, he **did not** want to deal with her anymore.

"Then don't be terrifying, I talk when I'm nervous." She let her cape fall over her shoulders.

Jason waved motioned to his superman themed shock blanket, his eyebrows raised. She let out an endearing chuckle and he rolled his eyes, suppressing his own smile. The cops, useless dumbasses, lost their hold on one of the guys and he made a run for it, they caught him again, but the guy was both nursing bruised ribs and he'd been cuffed, he shouldn't have gotten away to begin with, Jason scoffed.

"Okay, fine. Hey, does Oracle know about this? Cause if she doesn't she's gonna flip **out** when I tell her, but maybe the blanket will…"

"Nobody knows, and you'd better keep it that way." He growled out, more from reflex than anything else. He knew it was pointless, it didn't matter what he did now, they were probably already developing tracers for his location, finding out where he lived, where he did his grocery shopping. And fuck it; it was only a matter of time before they showed up again.

"Aaand we're back to terrifying." She put a couple more feet between them, and then settled in to tapping her foot against the waxed linoleum tiles, her head angling around to survey the room. She was blessedly quiet the few minutes it took the cops to approach them. One of looked new, freckled and young and a little pudgy, the other… well he looked like his partner if his partner had been left out in the sun to prune.

Jason took in a breath, and prepared himself for dealing with them, but they bypassed him, heading right for the Batgirl instead.

"I know you Bat's don't usually stay around long enough for the reports, but since you are, uh…" The cop tapped a pen against his notebook. "You wouldn't mind giving us a rundown of what happened here, uh, Batgi..., Miss Batgirl?"

"It's just Batgirl." She said it plainly enough, but Jason noticed the way she stood a little taller and her demeanor brightened with pride. "And I was…"

"Furry." Jason coughed into his hand, drawing the attention of both cops and more ire from Little Miss Batgirl. He bunched the fabric of his blankets in his hands, and plastered his face with all the innocence he had left in him.

Batgirl lowly grumbled something under her breath, and turned back to the cops. "I wasn't here for most of it, you'll have to ask that grouchy night guard what happened." She flicked her finger at him like she had gum stuck to the end of it.

"Uh." As one, the cops looked between Jason and Batgirl, if he was being honest, Jason would have said he found it a little creepy, but no one was asking there. "Right," the older one said, his voice gentle as the touch of a feather while the younger lightly patted Jason's back. "Would you be okay walking us through what happened here son?"

"Should we get him another blanket?" The younger one asked her, his eyes gone incredibly wide.

"He does look a little cold…" Batgirl reached towards Jason and pulled the Superman blanket more tightly about his shoulders.

Younger cop nodded once. "I'll go…"

"No!" Jason brought down his hand in a cutting motion and pulled the blanket off him. "I'm fine."

"You're sure?" Batgirl asked, grinning at him.

Jason huffed out another deep breath, but refrained from rolling his eyes. Sure, he knew security guards in Gotham, any city with supervillains really, were known for being useless, but this was just freaking ridiculous. "Yeah I'm sure," he balled up the blanket and threw it at her face before getting a shocked squeaking noise out of her before he looked back to the cops and jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. "Right this way." He turned and set a brisk pace, leading them back to the 'crime scene'.

"Careful guys, he's very, very delicate right now!" Batgirl punctuated her call with a light chuckle.

Jason stopped walking and spared a couple seconds to fix her with a scathing glare that had made pimps jump out of windows to get away from him. All it made her do was hold onto the balled up blanket a little tighter.

**000**

"Jason Todd, left out the Peter, aged twenty three, working as a night guard at the museum for about six months." Barbara droned on as she scrolled down the pages of data that filled her computer screen. "Good record, punches in and out on time." She shrugged and let out a puff of air, holding up her hands on either side of her. "The only thing he really lied about on his applications is his age."

"That's all." Steph was leaning over the back of Barbara's chair so she could read over the woman's shoulder. "Is there some kind of mystical artifact coming in that we don't know of, or like, a mafia owned restaurant across the street?"

"Closest mafia owned anything to that museum is a massage parlor five blocks away, I've hacked their feeds, and facial recognition has no hits on Jason, red-haired or otherwise as far back as the three months they have on file." She pressed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and hummed softly. "Good reviews, I'll have to send someone over to check it out."

Steph pouted at Barbara, who'd closed the tap on Jason to begin researching the massage parlor. "Really?"

"What? It's the best way to gather intell from those kinds of places." She minimized that window too. "Wendy could use some time away from work."

"I meant the stuff about Jason, Red Hood, you know, the crimelord. Didn't our great and mighty Batman spend a month looking for him a while back?"

"And now you've found him, there's no sign he'd been engaging in major criminal activity, we've got nothing other than a place of work, that's eight hours out of the day we know where he is if we need to find him." Stephanie opened her mouth to interject, but Bab's held up a hand to silence her. "Right now, the best thing we can do is leave him where he is and not provoke him."

Steph thought back to his chagrinned expression when a young medic had draped a shock blanket over his shoulders, then the look he'd sent her when he'd been leading the cops away. Damnit.

Barbara must have seen something of what Steph was thinking, because she turned from her screen and poked at Steph's arm, causing Steph to shake herself back to the present. "What?" She asked.

"I think I mighta provoked him already." She bit her lip and looked back at the screen.

**000**

There was no assassination attempt waiting for Steph when she took the bus home that morning. Her mom 'woke her up' for college with a plate of waffles and soft kiss to her forehead before crashing from a long nightshift at the hospital.

She wasn't stabbed on her commute to the college, and though she watched the rooftops the whole way there from beneath any cover she could find, she never noticed the glint of a sniper hiding waiting for a chance to take a shot at her.

By lunchtime, both the all-nighter she'd pulled, and the phil480 class that was supposed to be easy had tired her out too much for her to bother with the added vigilance. If someone was coming for her, it would most likely be at night, when she was Batgirl, and Batgirl could take care of former crimelords who she'd already gotten the drop on twice. Even if she couldn't, Barbara wasn't going to dig any further so there was no way Jason would find out Steph had told anyone where he was.

Like the others, she thought there more important things to do that worry about what one Rogue **might** when there was every chance that all she had to do was put away her stick, not poke the hornet's nest and he'd leave her alone.

That was a mistake.

Phil480 was the last class of the last day of the week, and Steph was, as per usual for the last minutes of her last classes, recovering from a not-very refreshing nap, waiting to be released from the weekday purgatory. It was almost over, the professor had already left to grade papers in the privacy of his office, and the rest of them where just gathering up their strengths to leave too.

"Stephanie." A voice called out to Steph, and it took her a couple seconds to pull herself to something more closely resembling wakefulness.

"Uh huh." Steph yawned and tried to put a name to the girl's face, Bethany, Brianne, something with a B…

"Cute red head asked me to bring this to you." Something-With-A-B said, sliding a glittery purple envelope into Steph's view.

"Huh?" Steph dragged a hand over her face and wiped away a thin trickle of drool with the sleeve of her sweater before reaching out to claim the envelope. Her slow mind unhelpfully chugging along through the list of red heads she knew. Barbara probably.

"God, could you be any slower?" Oh, Jordanna, and she was pissed again, great. She snatched up the letter before Steph could, and turned it over in her hands.

It was only then, when the Jordanna brought the envelope between Steph's eyes and the harsh lights, that she noticed the feint outline of the wires behind the paper. Uh oh, red head, sketchy envelope, wires. Shit.

"Uh, I need that back now." Steph said, reaching for the envelope though she didn't know **why** exactly, it would serve Jordanna right to be blown to tiny little pieces by an ex-crimelord.

"Why." Jordanna stepped out of reach, a mean smile on her face as she slipped her finger under the flap. "Who's it from."

"Jordanna, I swear, if you open that…" Too late.

There was a ripping sound, the envelope being torn open, and Steph had just enough time to yell for everyone to get to cover, duck under the desk, hear some shocked variations on screams and then a… poof?

A poof. She was expecting a BOOM. The screams now were now of a higher pitch and interspersed with laughter.

"What the… " Steph peeked out from under her desk and found that her seat had been coated in glitter, edible glitter, going by the sudden sweetness of the air. A slow look at the rest of the place showed that, everything else around Jordanna had been met with a similar fate. Furniture and students alike.

**Everything** covered in sparkly purple sugar, and Jordanna, fuming with the envelope still clutched in her hands, had gotten the worst of it.

"I did tell you not to open it." Steph said, slowly inching back under the desk

Yeah, screw not poking the hornet's nest, Steph was going to do… something to that asshole.

**000**

She was standing in that one shadowy corner of his office watching him slaughter his way through the hordes of zombies that assaulted his avatar. He'd cleared it out just that day for exactly this type of situation, tilted the lamps away, moved the table overflowing with the day guard's magazines to another corner and shifted both the console and soft indigo chair so he could keep the corner at his field of visions, edge.

The only time his eyes left his massacre was to shift across the security feeds displayed on the other screens and the silent alarms. He was two waves away from beating his previous high score when she finally got tired of him ignoring her and spoke.

"I know you know I'm here."

"Uh huh, ya need something else for your investigation into that nefarious museum heist?" They had him trapped in a corner of the house, and the ones that climbed the walls were coming at him in droves faster than he could get at them, damnit, didn't look like he was beating that record unless he got real lucky. Considering there was a Bat in his office though, it was safe to say this definitely wasn't one of his luckier days.

"You know why I'm here." She stomped out of her hiding place. "That was… I can have you arrested for that you know, endangerment and destruction of private property, and you're just… Edible glitter, **really** Todd, that's, it's petty's what it is, and you know I couldn't not tell them where you are. Do you know how much trouble I would have been in if you **did** something, and I knew where you were, and I didn't tell them?"

There she went with the last name thing again, so scary. He rolled his eyes. "Hold up, did you just admit to the dangerous criminal that you did the thing he warned you not to do because you think he'd stoop to a childish campus prank?" He gasped and got out his final in game grenade. He was going out, but he was taking as many of those undead bastards with him as humanly possible. "You really **did** need some criticism."

"I thought it was a real bomb! I thought people were gonna get exploded, then I had to clean it up, **all** of it, after class, do you know how long it took?!."

"Pow." Jason said as the screen lit up with the fire of his explosion, dasvidaniya assholes, his view tilted as his avatar fell and the game over screen informed him that he was dead. He sighed, and he'd been so close too. He spun lazily in his chair to face her. "And I'd have thought Batgirl had better things to do than bother a night guard." He motioned at the window with his controller. "I'll let you know if I get taken hostage or whatever."

"Yeah, you're real scary, Jason." She said, scowling down at him. "Y'know, Oracle said to leave you alone, cause you weren't making any kind of scene, hell, I think she was more interested in the massage parlor five blocks from here. **No one** gives any kind of crap what you're doing right now, so on top of being petty, it was pointless."

"You done yet?" Jason cocked his head at her, ignoring the brief stabbing he felt in his chest. "Yes? Good." He spun back to his game and respawned to begin the map again. Maybe he should try out the multiplayer lobby for once, kill some time.

"Unrepentant asshole." She scuffed at the ground and left through the door instead of the window.

The countdown started up again, but Jason didn't really see it. "No one gives a crap." He scoffed, shooting a glance at the window. Yeah, what else was new. Just something else to whine about at that week's session.


	3. The War

Jason always woke up before his alarm went off. A real clock, not a cellphone app, a small difference, but it was just something he liked having. He laid listened to its ticking while he stared at his ceiling, more familiar than he'd thought he'd ever let a ceiling get again. He remembered days when he was younger that he'd need to be dragged out of bed, couldn't remember the last time that it had happened. _Yes he could; it had been a school day, he'd been up late the night before trying to work on an essay he never handed in. He could still remember where he'd left it on his desk when he'd gone to…_

The alarm clock rang out shrill in the quiet of the room and Jason let go of the last dregs of sleep he'd held on to and got started on his stupid, structured morning routine.

Showered, brushed teeth while checking that his hair hasn't grown out too much - remembered that Batgirl had to have an opinion about **that** too – he chugged a glass of water and stomped out of the bathroom. Got Dressed, ate leftovers while checking mail – nothing but bills – , set leftovers out on the fire escape for that evil cat.

He was early enough to wave at the girls down the hall as they made their way to their jobs. That counted as social interaction, right? Maybe not, couldn't cross that off his mental list then. Could have tried a conversation with someone on the bus, but it was late, they were probably all on their way home and he didn't want anyone thinking he was going to try mugging them again. He played candy crush the whole ride.

The rest of the guard staff were already gone as always by the time he got to the museum, so not them either.

He clocked in, right on time as always, contemplating what snacks he'd get from the vending machine later on. Changed into his uniform, scanned through the cameras. If someone else broke in, and he kicked them out, that **did** count as social interaction, if he wanted it to. Not like it counted as looking for a fight, he still got to keep his record, and nobody could…

'_Nobody gives any kind of crap what you're doing right now.'_

His hands stilled over the playstation controller for just a second before picking it up. It didn't matter, he didn't **want** any of those people anywhere near him. Now he didn't have to worry about them messing things up for him. He sighed and tried to bring a hand to his hair…

The other hand came with it, and the controller. _'What the…'_ He raised it over his head so he could inspect the bottom of it, and only then he spotted the note, written in red ink and accompanied by a scribbled doodle of a bat.

'_Now you can play your dumb game until the end of time. DON'T mess with my school.'_

Batgirl. Halfheartedly, he tried tugging his hands free from the controller again. She'd covered the freaking thing in superglue.

000

Steph had known it was stupid, she'd known it was stupid even as she'd been doing it, but she wasn't going to let the guy get away with being an asshole just because he knew he was scary. Him knowing he was scary was just another reason for her to do it, knock him down a few pegs. It didn't matter how weird he'd looked about some of the things she'd said or how weird that had made her feel after.

He'd retaliate, she knew that, but this time she was prepared for it. An extra goopy gooperang in her pocket, a miniature vacuum cleaner in her backpack for collateral damage, and a watchful eye that was **extra** watchful and focused intently on her surroundings so there wouldn't be a repeat of the last time. She could only hope that whatever he did to her, it wouldn't happen at the college again.

She got home from a completely normal, non-eventful day of classes to find her mom – up and about during what should have been her designated sleeping hours – standing in front of the coffee table, arms crossed and foot tapping rhythmically on the carpet.

"Hey Mom." Steph grinned her totally normal, nothing out of place here grin, and adjusted the strap of her backpack on her shoulder. "You're up early, slow night at the hospital?"

"Stephanie." Crystal Brown sighed,, looking about as impressed as a frog watching TV, which was to say not very. "Is there something I should know?"

Steph's laugh was way more nervous than she wanted it to be, but also about as confident as she could have expected. "No, why?" She walked by both her mother and the coffee table without looking at either once.

"Honey." Crystal grabbed Steph by the shoulder, her free hand holding up a cheap notebook with the words _'PEOPLE WHO OWE ME MONEY FOR DRUGS THAT I SOLD THEM,'_ printed in bold capital letters across the cover. "Is this one of those college prank things?" Now the traitor looked way too much like she was trying not to laugh.

Also in line of sight was the coffee table. Neatly stacked bricks of white powder in clear plastic, a scale with one side stacked heavily with that same white powder. There was even a mirror with more powder rows across it's surface besides a plastic straw.

"If that's really what it looks like, I'm going to stab him to death with a rusty piece of tinfoil." Steph's dumb internal/external monologue issues didn't know they were set to say it out loud until she did. "Well…" Crystal looked back at the 'drugs' over her shoulder, then opened up the book. "It is a lot of flour for one person, it's a good thing we were out."

On the notebook page, first amongst the list of people who owed Stephanie money for drugs she'd allegedly sold them, was the name _'Jason Todd'_. Flour, because of course it was, because he was **so** fucking funny.

"Oh, he is **dead**." Stephanie tore the page from the book to crumple harshly into a compact little ball in her fist. Where the hell did he even find the time out of his day to **do** that?

000

Honestly, Jason had been expecting something a little more creative than a paint bomb in his locker. Enough of the stuff had gotten into his mouth for him to confirm that yes, it was paint dripping down his chin and soaking his horrifyingly white T-shirt like a spray of cold blood.

He wiped the chalky, congealing stuff from his face to survey any damage done to the inside of his locker. Surprisingly, there wasn't much. The edges were splattered with Red, but most of the inside – including his uniform, thank god – had been covered with a protective dozen or so layers of cling wrap.

Also covered by the cling film, and revealed by a cleansing brushing aside of paint with his sleeve, was a note, as if he needed one to know who'd dared; a scribbling of a very angry cartoon Batgirl. He tore the note from it's protective cocoon and shook his head at it, and unwilling smile coming to his lips. It was actually a pretty cute doodle.

He'd still expected more though.

000

Steph wasn't sure whether to be grateful or not at the mess she'd woken up to. On the one hand, her Mom wasn't there to see this one. Steph was having a hard enough time as it was keeping up the veneer that Crystal Brown had a completely normal college student for a daughter. Beehive of grades and all. There was no way this was passing for normal.

On the other hand, that didn't mean she wanted to wake up from her pre-patrol nap to a dinosaur herd… flock, whatever the hell a bunch of dinosaurs were, covering up a murder on her front porch.

Plastic dinosaur toys to be specific. She knew it wasn't some accident that had befallen the torn apart red dinosaur, because the purple dinosaur had a little trumpet in her raised hands as her part brown, part skeletal minions carted the paint covered remains defeated, red dinosaur off.

She also knew it wasn't the doings of some kids – at least not age-wise, apparently – because the little note she making up the purple dinosaurs cape read, _'That last one killed me, so original, I can't imagine you doing any better.'_ Yeah, the sarcasm was really unwarranted there, and this really wasn't any better. This didn't even count as a prank, what he hell? Hers had been a classic, and she'd done well enough for the rush she'd been in after the other guards had left.

At least this time there wasn't a huge mess for her to clean up, but the note sorta stung more than that could have. If he wanted her to do better, she was going to do better and make him regret it so very much.

000

Nothing had happened yet. He'd been careful, sure, but not **so** careful he'd thought nothing would happen. Nothing when he clocked in, or changed, or checked on the office before he started his rounds about the museum.

Well, something in that he found that one professor that was always there too late, and Jason always happened to scare the living daylights out of him.

"Take it, I have nothing." With that contradictory statement, he nearly keeled over, clutching at his chest dramatically when Jason approached him.

"Just me." Jason said, plucking at the security label embroidered on his jacket.

"One day, young man, you'll be calling me an ambulance." He jabbed his walking stick in Jason's direction while rubbing at his chest. "Always sneaking about in the dark, it's unnatural." He huffed.

And, okay, to be fair, the guy was stupid old, Jason wasn't sure why the hell he was still working at all, let alone at this hour every night, heart attack was a likely end for him. But it wasn't like Jason did it on purpose either.

"It's my job to sneak around in the dark." To walk around in the dark at least. "Did you forget something in your office, or…"

The old professor huffed again. "So I'm old, so I must have forgotten something? I don't you're your tone there, **sonny** and I'm sure not to forget **that**."

Of course he didn't. Jason held back a sigh and decided not to try and make conversation tonight. "Would you like me to accompany you to your car, sir?" God, the last time he'd had to call someone that he'd been in school _\- or in green shorts, joking with the commissioner or B… -_ "There was a break in a while ago and it might not be safe."

"Not safe." He started his way down the hall, his walking stick hitting the tiles with sharp, loud taps. "What the hell's the point of paying **you** people if the damned place isn't safe. Pay you to hide in your office and watch television. **I** could do that and still be at work, but you young people…"

Jason mostly tuned out the rest while he did, in fact walk him to his car. No matter how incompetent the dumbasses who'd tried to rob the museum had been, it didn't take much smarts no knife an old man in a parking lot, and Jason wasn't going to be responsible for that. He was just happy to wave off the old yellow car and go back inside. See, he did do his job.

Just to be sure, Jason did an extra round about the museum, but nothing and no one had been snuck in during his short absence. Nothing, again. The most interesting thing that happened was the armful of twinkies he stopped to buy in his way back to the office.

"Huh." Jason dropped into his chair. He gave the new controller a thorough once over before he turned on the console and started up his game. Someone, someone's on the dayshift had teamed up and beaten his high score again.

Maybe she'd taken his note as a threat? The way she seemed to take everything he did. That he'd expect her, or anyone who knew him to take everything he did. Maybe reusing the paint had been too much, or…

With a sigh, he set down the controller and leaned back in the chair, idly kicking his feet to turn the thing in circles, taking in the surveillance screens whenever he happened to face them. As usual, he paid just a little extra attention to the ones near the blind spots, as usual, there was nothing.

Easy to hack or otherwise damage, these cameras were rarely very useful anyway.

He was on the verge of getting up to do another walk around when he noticed a shape speeding up to the employee entrance, cape splayed out behind it. And no, it couldn't have been her, she wasn't going to actually try walk in the front door for whatever she was doing, right?

He got up from his seat and stood in front of the cameras, to get a closer look and make sure he was seeing what he was seeing. Though he saw her raising her fist, he startled at the loud, frantic banging of it against the door. For a handful of moments he stayed watching her, checked behind and around her for anything that would make her try getting in that way, in Gotham it could be anything.

He shook it off and made sure he had his stun gun before he headed for the door.

When he pulled open the door, her expression was as panicked as her knocking, she stepped past him and into the museum, pulling off her cowl as she went without so much as a pause. So, not a supervillain chasing her down at least.

"If this is part of your comeback, it's already ..." Jason began as he moved to shut the door, but one of her gauntleted hands covered over his mouth before he could finish.

"This is more important than my dumb prank, Jason." She peeked over his shoulder as he closed it and stepped back when it was done, clutching a backpack he hadn't taken note of before tightly to her chest. "My **mom** heard me in the Batgirl suit."

000

Whatever her prank was going to be, it had involved ice cream, Neapolitan, which meant three sweet, sweet flavors for him to now devour as payment for his services. Or was it… he scrutinized the strawberry ice cream sitting innocently on the plastic cafeteria spoon closely, before he shrugged and ate it anyway. This was probably not going to be worth it.

"… and she was **supposed** to be working a shift tonight, but she was like, right around the corner when I answered the phone." Her laughter then was low and self depreciating, but there was still enough genuine mirth in it that it couldn't be called dark. "I never ran so fast in my life, and I mean **never**."

"That's the most ridiculous lie I've ever heard." It wasn't, Jason's 'lieutenants' had, on occasion, gotten **very** very creative with their excuses for the bullshit they'd tried getting away with. He'd rarely been as amused with them as he was right now though. "And I still don't get how you think this'll help."

"Told her I was going to study with a friend and, you were close by." She called from the office he'd not so smartly left her alone in for the privacy to change into some casual wear he'd dug up for her in lost and found.

Yeah, there was that. There was also the fact that if anyone bothered actually looking in on him – it had never happened yet, but it was in his contract – this would land him in a hell of a lot of trouble. Why was he doing this again?

"And why were there pants in lost and found?"

"Don't ask me," Jason said around a mouthful of chocolate, "I just work here, and not even at the times where there are people around to leave their pants behind."

"I take it back, I don't wanna think about where the pants come from." She groaned loudly and the door swung open. The clothes fit her well enough. In skinny jeans and a polka dot t-shirt, hair brushed back with a comb also from lost and found she looked about as normal as she could. " And stop telling me you work here, it's weird." She held up the Batgirl suit, neatly folded with the gadgets stacked on top. "This needs a good hiding place."

With great reluctance, Jason set his ice cream on the nearest desk and relieved her of the bundle. He stashed it in the drawer of a desk he never used, then went over to the computer they were supposed to use only for security reviews and began the process of erasing the tapes.

"Whoa, don't think you gotta go that far," she said, again looking over his shoulder.

"Do if I don't wanna get fired." And if he didn't want a future review to catch Batgirl changing out of her costume. If anyone ever pointed it out, he'd just blame it on those idiots who'd tried to rob the place again.

"Wait, really?" She surprised Jason by actually sounding worried when she stepped away from him, tucking her arms close to her body like she was afraid of touching anything. "I thought that was **yours**." She picked at the hem of her polka dot t-shirt. "And, I didn't think you'd get in trouble, just figured you were close and you'd play along."

"For some reason." Jason set the cameras to loop in on themselves and done. He kicked his chair to the desk where he'd found left his ice cream so he could snatch it up and they could resume the devouring.

"Because if I get caught you'll never know of the awesome revenge I was coming over to enact." She clenched a fist tightly in front of her and grinned broadly. "Also, she's bringing snacks, everyone loves snacks, so stop complaining."

No arguing on the snacks, but she'd gotten real confident, had she? "Please, you peaked at the superglue thing, and that wasn't even all that clever." He scooped up a portion if chocolate and vanilla that was sure to give him brain freeze when he got around to eating it. "I'm not worried." Yup, there was the brain freeze, he cringed and pressed himself further into the chair while he waited for it to pass.

She had the audacity to laugh at him and Jason opened just one eye to glare at her. It didn't take long and she was indignant again.

"Hey, you don't get to judge me and my epic pranking skills, okay." She placed on hand on her hip and jabbed a finger in his direction. "No idea where you got the time for all that, but I'm **busy** and you know where I live. I can't just set off a glitter bomb with thousand year old relics in the splash zone." She flicked her hair over her shoulder. "I have standards."

"By the way, that controller was museum property and I had to buy it back out of pocket before they noticed."

"Wait, really?" She looked over at the console and the controller that still sat atop it.

"Yes really."

"You see, **this** is the problem." She flung her arms out way too dramatically and pulled out the inferior chair blue from behind a desk so she could fall into it, sliding a little too near Jason's position in the process. "You have all the advantages here. You can do whatever you can think of to me, but all **I** get to do is dump paint on your head, and the second I try something bigger, I almost get caught by my mom."

Yeah, fine that was a good point, Jason did have the entirety of the museum as a very effective shield. "Didn't Bruce train you at all? Shoulda learned to work with a disadvantage." He scooped up some more ice cream, not enough for a brain freeze this time.

"If I wasn't worried about breaking something priceless I'd throw it at you." She crossed her arms tightly and glared at him.

Jason grinned back at he stuck the spoon in his mouth.

"When I do find out where you live, there will be carnage." Cute, if it was more than just talk that was.

"I look forward to it." He said, his eyes drifting over to the screens and the new shape moving across the parking lot, alone at near midnight. He pointed his spoon at the screen to get Stephanie's attention. "What's the cover story again?"

"We're studying." Stephanie got up from her chair and leaned over to straighten her hair with the help of her reflection on the mostly black TV screen.

Jason looked around at the untidy office, with its complete and utter lack of anything even bordering on scholarly in sight, and shrugged. Not like it was **his** cover story.

"You're just lucky I'm bored." He jabbed his spoon back into the ice cream and set it aside.

"Just don't go all Friday the thirteenth on us here, okay." She said, moving to the employee entrance ahead of him.

"That joke only works on one level."

"It works on many levels, you're just culturally inept."

000

Steph regretted right away that she'd gotten up before Jason had. It was a little disconcerting having Jason Todd, seeker of revenge at her back when Stephanie went to meet her mother, but what was worse was that she really hadn't worried about it until she'd actually thought to, and this was really something she should have worried about.

The disconcertion lasted only until Steph had opened the door and saw her mother, the stern, lecture ready face she was still perfecting in place, and then Steph saw that expression melt away the second her mom caught sight of Jason, peeking over Steph's shoulder like a shy five year old. For just a moment, Steph could have sworn that was almost recognition in her eyes.

"I was promised snacks." Jason opened with, which was… yeah, Steph had promised, but it wasn't like she hadn't seen the pile of twinkies in his office.

"Really?" Steph rolled her eyes at him and Jason shrugged, looking almost innocent in a way that was deliberately mischievous.

"What?" He turned up his hands at her.

"Of course, you need a break with all the **studying** don't you?" Crystal Brown stepped inside without batting an eyelash, brining her clunky purse up to rifle through it, and Steph couldn't help but worry all along the walk down the short hallway that led to the security office.

"I'm not studying." Jason said, stepping neatly by Steph and past Crystal to enter the office first, and Steph remembered that her suit had been stashed right by that door, within easy reach if he wanted to pull it out. Her chest sank and she sped up, knowing that even if she were to reach it before him, there was nothing she could do to stop it.

"Oh," Crystal sent a **look** over her shoulder at Steph, and she withered, causing her mother's frown to deepen. Damnit, sometimes, very rarely, Steph's cursed the perceptiveness her mom had gained after… everything.

"Yeah, she's doing something her psych class about the 'psychology of fashion thought the ages', so I was giving her a clandestine tour of the exhibit we have here."

That got her mom's attention snapping from Steph to Jason in a second. "Not too clandestine I think." They stepped into the office, and Crystal's gaze traveled quickly to the TV, the ice cream, and yes, the pile of twinkies. "She is my daughter." She produced a couple bottles of flavored milk and some store bought sandwiches from her purse.

Steph could just hold back the relieved sigh when they all moved past the desk with her suit, she was so relieved, in fact, that it took her a second to process what her mom had said. "**Mom** no." Stephanie got herself between Jason and her mom, she focused a glare on Jason, but he seemed more interested the sandwich he'd just been handed that anything her mom had said.

"Yes, fresh food at last." He laid it on a little thick, holding the sandwich like he'd just been given some great gift, and immediately after went to his chair to begin it of its plastic casing. "What?" He asked again, this time with a much more genuine confusion as to what had earned him her focus.

"Really, Mom? Look at this guy's innocent little face, would I ever?" Steph jabbed the straw into her milk while waving an arm at Jason.

"What?" I really helped that right then Jason had his cheeks stuffed with bread and looked like an overgrown chipmunk.

"I'm not judging you, sweetheart, but I don't want you to feel you have to lie to me about these things." Crystal reached up to brush a lock of Stephanie's hair – hair that Steph had made sure was neatly styled and looked not at all like Steph had been leaping across rooftops for an hour before this – behind her ear.

"What things?" Jason chipped in, a glint in his eyes that was something like understanding.

"This isn't those things." Stephanie turned her mother away from Jason and spoke in a lowered voice, hoping the woman would follow suit. "It's just school stuff."

"If you say so, dear. I'd just rather know you were with a boy than worry you were…" Crystal shot a glance over at Jason, who was still watching them and now looking vaguely uncomfortable. "You know."

"Yeah, I know Mom." Steph smiled, guilt curling in her gut like a parasitic worm that ate away at anything she fed herself to make herself feel better. "I'd tell you if there was something like that going on. He's just a…" not a friend, definitely, and Steph felt guilty enough right now without adding another lie to the pile. "… helper."

Crystal still didn't look convinced, but she nodded as if she was. "Well then, I'll just leave you and Jason here to your **studying**." She smiled at Steph and swung her purse over her shoulder. "I don't have to warn you to be careful if you're exploration leads to…"

"You know what." Steph cut her mother off right as Jason's face turned a very interesting shade of red and he finally stopped chewing on his sandwich. "We actually finished up with the… tour already." Stephanie planted both hands in her mother's shoulders and began leading the woman towards the door. "Thank you Jason for your help, it was all very informative, I'll let you know if…" wait.

She spun on her heel and marched back to Jason, who still looked a little shell-shocked if she dared use the word. "I never told my mom your name."

"Uh, yeah…" He looked up between Stephanie and her mother with wide, almost glassy eyes that got back their mischievous glint. "She let me in to set up the thing with the flour." He grinned up at Crystal and reached behind him to pluck up the stupid gaming controller. "I wanted to get the one with the stripes, but this one looked more like the old one."

"What?" Stephanie blinked down at him, then turned to her Mom. "Why would you…" She spun back to Jason.

"He told me the two of you were playing some sort of game." Crystal said, and she did look a little guilty about it, which only reinforced the guilt Steph had been feeling on her own earlier, Steph clamped down on it quickly.

"It's not a game, Mom, it's a war." She thrust her finger at Jason. "And **he** started it, and now he's turned my own mother against me."

"Hey, I'm charming." Jason patted his face like an ass, he didn't have a single charming bone in his stupid body. "And how did you think I got in."

"I thought you just broke in, like a regular person."

" Hey, that would have been **illegal** Stephanie." He scoffed and turned up his nose at her. "You really think I'm some kind of criminal?" He looked to Steph's mom. "And she lies, she started it, she made fun of me."

"It was one joke, and this is worse than being a criminal." Stephanie rubbed a hand at across her brow and shook her head. "I am going to destroy you, Todd, you will **suffer** and I will watch."

"Sure, Sunshine." His grin was wide and held nothing but amusement when he waved her off.

"We need to get home." She told her mom and started again for the door. "I must plan."

She pretended to ignore her mom's soft chuckles, as they went, pretended she wasn't glad her mom had this to chuckle over instead of the worry she'd have felt if she'd found out the truth. She pretended to herself that she wasn't still grateful beyond words that Jason had gone along with it despite how frustrating he'd been for parts of it, that maybe he wasn't as much of a terrifying asshole as Steph had guessed.

The next morning, she found her Batgirl suit waiting for her in a package taped to her window, out of sight of her mom and with a note that read _'your move,' _and a winking face. She looked the suit over thoroughly, but there were no bugs or traps that sent glitter swirling all over her room. It was in the same exact condition as it had been when she'd handed it to him.

But, of course there wouldn't be, it was Steph's turn, not his, and since he was looking forward to it **that** much, well, it wouldn't be very sportsmanlike for her to disappoint him. First thing, though she had to find out where the guy lived so he couldn't hide behind his job.

000

Wendy still wasn't back from wherever it was she'd gone to the next night when Steph got back to firewall, which was, whatever. If Jason was listed anywhere under his – sort of – real name, it wouldn't be that hard to track him down using the computers down there. It would just take Steph a little longer than it would have taken Wendy, and at least this way, she'd only have to feel back about accessing the databases for personal use, and not wasting someone else's time.

It would have been fine, except that Bab's **was** down there, which again, would have been fine, but there was **something** bigish going on with the Birds of Prey that had had her really tied up the past couple of days. Too busy to be checking in on Steph and not dealing with it over at her The Clocktower.

"Don't look so shocked." Babs opened with, not looking up from her work on the many screens surrounding her chair. "You ended patrol early last night, I was worried something happened."

"Not really." Steph said doing her best to school her features into something resembling casual. "I just ran into my **mom**, and y'know," she strolled over to her mentor. "So I went home with her."

"Uh huh, your route was also rather unusual." Babs swiped at something across the screen and, turned to Steph. Now that Steph looked, Babs really did look a little relieved to see her. "What brought you to the museum."

Crap. She'd thought Jason had erased all those cameras, but then, would he even know about anything the Bats might have set up to watch him specifically? If Steph had really been caught on something, and Bab's had seen how close she'd gotten to Jason, how she'd handed off her gear without much more than a second thought? Then damn, she was in trouble.

"How about you tell me what you **think** I was doing, and we go from there?" She tried smiling, new it was too wide and too tense to be in any way believable. This only seemed to confirm whatever suspicions Babs had.

The older woman sighed deeply and pushed up her glasses to press at her eyelids. "There's a **reason** Dick stopped looking for Jason after that one month. You need to stop doing this."

That was a lot less intense than the response Steph had expected she'd get when she was found out. Barbara didn't even look mad, just tired and overworked, and that might have made Steph feel a little worse.

"I don't get why it's that big of a deal, I mean, it's just a couple of super harmless pranks."

"You're **what**?" Barbara's head snapped up at and she rolled her chair the few feet that stood between her and Stephanie, and okay, that wide arch to her eyes and the tight grimace on her face were much closer to what Steph had expected.

"Uh…" Steph poked at her utility belt, a little too confused at Bab's delayed reaction to really come up with a response.

"You're **pranking** Jason Todd?" Barbara asked, but if it was more an answer to her own question than a question in itself, and if she expected some reply from Steph, she didn't give the girl more than a moment to give one. "As in, the exact opposite of what I said when I told you **not** to antagonize him?"

"Come on, I' not **antagonizing** him, Bab's, it's just a game. I mean, I'm pretty sure he's having at least as much fun as I am." Stephanie moved from Babs to the racks of gear to begin her nightly checking and restocking of gooperangs and such.

"Stephanie, you don't play games like this with someone like Jason." Babs wheeled herself into Steph's path. "Do you think it's still going to fun when it escalates? When the bombs aren't shooting glitter and they're not targeting **just** you anymore?"

"His last prank, was setting up a bunch of toy dinosaurs on my driveway, Barbara, just **toys**, he hasn't done anything remotely dangerous in forever. **You're** the one who told me that," Stephanie threw up her hands and let out a deep sigh of her own. They were the ones who said it was fine for Jason to be on the loose when Stephanie had been weary of it; to her it seemed just a teensy bit hypocritical for Babs to think this was worse.

"Yes, but I've also seen how dangerous he can be when he'd been provoked, do you want me to pull up his file and **show** you what he's capable of?" Babs gestured at the computer, but Steph didn't need to see the file, she'd already gotten to see bits and pieces of it. One drug lord had had to be institutionalized at Arkham because of something Jason had done to him, but Steph hadn't gotten to see what that was. Steph wasn't a drug lord – aside from that one afternoon, and she doubted flour was a controlled substance **anywhere** in the world.

"Does the file have his address in it?" Steph asked her tone maybe a little **too** chipper.

Bab's face went from mad to the one that looked less mad, but Steph knew meant she was near the point of no return. Under that, and Steph could only even see it now because she'd gotten so used to it, was worry. Again.

"Just, the one more I had planned, and then I promise, never again." Steph tried, knowing it was futile, ut she could tell that Jason had been looking forward to seeing what she'd come up with, and she **really** wanted to know if she could catch him with it.

"No." Babs made a chopping motion with her hands, as if her tone wasn't final enough. "No more pranking Jason Todd, and no more Batgirl skulking around the museum while he's on shift, do you understand?"

"Come on, Babs, I already told him it was gonna be…"

"**No** Stephanie!" Barbara didn't raise her voice at Steph often, so when she did it Steph knew she was serious. Knew there was nothing she could say that would change her mentor's decision in the slightest. Backing off when Bab's thought something was this dangerous was the only thing she asked of Steph to be allowed in the Batgirl suit.

"Fine, no more prank war with the incredibly dangerous," but not dangerous enough to do anything about him, "zombie boy." Stephanie did her best not to sigh again, or to show even a little of how disappointed she was by the decree. "Can I at least have his number," because of course Babs would have it, "or something so I can tell him myself?"

"That's fine." Babs didn't even go over to the computer to get it, but gave Steph the number off her own cellphone. Steph thought it better not to ask why it was there when it was pretty clear it had never been used, but she didn't feel much like talking about that right then. "We're not doing this to make you miserable," Babs said softly when Steph had finished writing it down, "there is a good reason."

"Yeah I know." Stephanie mumbled half heartedly and went over to finish getting ready for the night.

The last Steph heard from Babs that night was the admonishment, "Stick to the patrol route and if you get in over your head, **call**."

Steph didn't need to call, though she stuck closely to the route set out for her. It was, as she could have guessed, an easy one that kept her away from anything other than the routine crime she was trusted to handle without someone to watch over her shoulder that she did it right.

She would never have called it boring by any means, but she hadn't even realized how much fun she was having thinking up dumb pranks to pull on Jason in their little game until it was cut way short.

Instead of calling Jason to tell him, the next day she sent him a short text with her name and an address, asking if he could meet up. There was a confirmation not half an hour later.

000

"So," The chair got a thorough inspection before Jason sat in it, Steph tried her best to keep the gratification off her face, at least he knew to be wary, even if she couldn't actually do anything to earn it now. "I'm pleased you called this meeting, because in my opinion, mine, not someone else's, this whole thing might have gotten ever so slightly out of hand."

"Ever so slightly?" Steph raised a brow and leaned back, keeping her everything out of his reach. There was no way he was doing this before Steph had to.

"**Ever** so slightly." Jason nodded, he looked around the café for a couple seconds longer than it would have taken him to admire the decor, for what exactly Steph didn't begin to guess at. "According to **me** of course." He pressed his fingers to his puffed out chest.

"Of course." Steph agreed, nodding too for emphasis. "I have also come to this conclusion, on my own, with no input from anyone else." She interlaced her hands in front of her. "And since it seems we've both come to the same conclusion, if you were to propose a truce, I'd accept it graciously."

"Ah, I see." He cocked his head at her and narrowed his eyes in a mockery of consideration, the beginnings of a smile tugged at his lips, but he didn't let it grow, his face was completely serious when he thrust out a hand over the table. "Truce, then?"

"Truce." Steph reached over and clasped the hand tightly.

They got out one sharp shake and another serious, dignified nod each, before they both had to turn away to cover up their amused snorts.

"Oh god." Steph chuckled and shook her head as she reached for her coffee.

"Dick?" Jason questioned and picked up the cup she'd ordered preemptively for him.

"Barbara." Steph rolled her eyes.

Jason sighed and if he were anyone else, Steph would have called him out on the pout. "Old people."

"And for you?" Steph sipped on her sweet, fluffy latte.

"Someone." He said.

"Oh, come on, I told you mine." Steph did pout, and **she** didn't try to hide it like a coward. "I wanna know who can boss your scary ass around."

"No one you know, and you'll never meet 'em, so it doesn't matter." He tore open a sugar packet. "And they don't boss me around." He jabbed a spoon at her. "But apparently this whole thing is **bad** for me, because engaging in this sort of competition is 'setting me back into old, harmful patterns.'" He rolled his eyes at the last part and stirred the sugar into his coffee with a little too much force.

"Well I heard I heard you're practicing for when you methodically take my life apart and leave me a quivering wreck of a human being keeled over and muttering to myself at Arkham, so…" She raised her cup over the table and he obligingly tapped his against it and they both drank deeply. "They're so overdramatic."

"Yeah, I mean, I'm good, but even I can't take apart something that doesn't exist." He scoffed and sipped at his coffee.

"Hey!" She directed her most powerful and very intimidating glare at him. "I have more of a life than you."

"I'm **literally** dead." He turned up a hand from her. "That you're tryna use me as a measuring stick just makes it sadder."

"You're as overdramatic as them." Steph huffed. "But I'll concede the point. Though, I was kinda dead too so only like, half of the point."

Jason's face scrunched up for a couple of seconds in what Steph was going to assume was his thinking face. "Oh." His eyes widened a little at the realization he came to and he tapped his cup. "That."

"Yeah." She turned to look out the window at the little bit of sun that filtered its way through the gloom, it was a really stupid thing to bring up in present company, she didn't know why she'd gone and done it. "That." She drank down a quarter of her coffee.

He hummed and raised his cup to her again. "Fine, one half of a point to Brown."

"You're so generous." She said, happy to kick the subject out the window, she propped an arm on the table and rested her cheek in her palm. "So, what're you gonna do now."

"Huh?" Jason's head snapped back from his contemplation of the snack counter.

"Without the grand mental stimulation that was our intense rivalry." She looked past him at the counter.

"Bold of you to assume I'll notice the difference." He leaned back a cocky smirk on his face that was just a little too relaxed.

"Bold of you to assume that'll work." Steph shot back, when he didn't bite, she added. "Oh come on, spare my self esteem at least. What does the great Red Hood do for fun now that he's one of the precious unmasked masses I'm sworn to protect?"

"Fun?" Jason hummed and shrugged, he finished his coffee and went back to looking longingly at the snack counter. "Stuff." He said, and at Stephanie's offended huff, he added. "Work, and sleep and TV and… " He actually grimaced. "Normal people stuff."

"That's it?" Stephanie felt her face scrunching up when she scrutinized him. There was no lie in his blank stare, but that really wasn't saying much. "Man, if that's true, you really did need our intense rivalry." She'd take it anyway.

"Yeah well, it's all I **can** do while I'm doing…" he waved his hand around his head. "This thing."

"The normal human being thing?"

"Yes, the normal human being thing." He puffed out his cheeks and sighed loudly as he raised his eyes skyward. "Less I wanna, I dunno, get high and make internet videos of old people falling down stairs or something."

"Y'know, you're like, **really** dumb." She waved a hand at his affronted expression. " I mean for someone who's **supposed** to be smart you're not very creative. Being an asshole isn't like, a requirement for having fun, there's still going to the beach, or shopping, or ping pong," Stephanie counted them off on her fingers as she listed them, "The movies, or like, ball games I guess, or just, hanging out with dumb friends and doing dumb, normal **fun** stuff."

"Yeah…" He grumbled one hand moving to run at the back of his neck. "That sorta stuffs not really my thing."

"Was working as a security guard and playing candy crush all night your thing before this?" Stephanie leaned forward and used her best not to sound smug, she didn't feel smug, she shouldn't have sounded that smug.

Jason's face scrunched up and she knew she'd failed. And okay, maybe she was a **little** smug, but only a little. "You're a ballsy one, aren't ya?"

"C'mon, what's the point of taking all the time out of scaring the crap outta the underworld to do this **thing** you're doing if ya half ass you're way through it?" She drank deeply of her now near empty coffee then slammed the cup on the table. Doing it like this is gonna **make you** wanna be a serial killer by the time you're done."

Jason's mouth worked like there was something he wanted to say, but all that wound up coming out was an indecisive grunt.

"Hey, I'll even show the ropes if ya want, it'll be **fun**." She'd linked her hands on the table and was leaning a little too far over the table before she had the time to process what she was doing and what she was saying and how monumentally stupid it was. "Uh, I mean…" She didn't even know what she meant.

Jason blinked at her a couple times, his eyes wide and owlish and far too far off from what Jason Todd was supposed to be. After an amount of time Stephanie couldn't have counted if she's tried, he stood, "I'm uh…" he looked towards the door and Stephanie was sure he was going to leave; she didn't know why she maybe didn't like that he was going to leave. But he didn't leave. He cleared his throat. "I'm gonna go and get a muffin, ya want anything?"

"A muffin sounds good." Stephanie said, her voice so soft to her own ears he shouldn't have heard it.

He nodded anyway, and left the table for the snack counter he'd been eyeing before.

Steph didn't watch him go, she was too busy twirling around the little coffee left in her cup and cursing herself for an idiot. The mcFreaking Red Hood didn't want **her** help being a mundane, everyday human being. What was she gonna do anyway? It wasn't like her non-Batgirl life was booming either – or her Batgirl life either for that matter. Stupid. She groaned and let her head fall onto her folded arms.

This was why nobody had taken Spoiler seriously, and Babs still monitored Batgirl so closely, and Robin had… turned out the way it did for her.

The crinkling of a wrapper and a sweet smell under her nose. Stephanie looked up over her arms at the muffin that had appeared on the table in front of her. Then higher at Jason, again sitting across from her and biting into the muffin he'd gotten for himself. He shot only a brief look at her before his eyes turned to the window and the usual cloudiness that was Gotham even in the summer.

"You're really not qualified for something like that." Jason said, and he sounded… almost nervous if Steph were to dare apply the word to him.

"Well, yeah, I know that." Steph carefully, very carefully, lifted her muffin, vanilla, with little bits of strawberries baked into it, she tore at the edge of the clear wrapper. "But, we've already established I have more of a life than you do, and anyway, 'those who can't do, teach, right?" She didn't know why she was pushing it when she'd come to exactly the same conclusion as she had. Maybe it was **because** he'd come to the same conclusion?

"Why though?" Jason looked at her without turning his head, "Isn't it your sworn duty or whatever to bring the evil supervillain to justice?" His hair looked very red in the bright lighting of the café, however he did it, or whoever he got to do it for him, did a much better job of it than he had in that motel room forever ago. She could still see the dark roots growing out when she looked for them. "They tell you to follow me around again?"

"Nope." Steph said around a mouthful of muffin and sipped on her lukewarm coffee to wash it down. "I'd kill myself they tried to make me spend my nights watching you suck at videos games, it's too sad." He slowly raised his middle finger in response, and Steph had to cover her amused snort by finishing the coffee. "C'mon, you know it'll be fun."

Jason hummed softly. He would have left by now if he wasn't at least thinking about it, right?

"The you-know-who's would hate it." Stephanie added and Jason turned from the window. They would. While the official 'order' was just to not prank him anymore, Stephanie knew she wasn't supposed to engage with Jason at all, even indirectly the way she had been. She was going to be in trouble when they found out, but then, Jason was right in that they'd also told her to keep an eye on him, and they'd never taken her off that job either. "So much."

"Fine." Jason shrugged, his brows furrowing in uncertainty. "That'll probably make up for anything bad that could come out of this."

"Yes!" Steph reached a hand across the table. "And I know where you work, so no takebaksies."

Jason's hand wasn't as rough as she thought it would be when he shook hers, not soft, sure, but the calluses that would have given away his… profession were almost totally smoothed over. "And I know where you **live**."

"Sure, you can drop off more flour any time." Steph rolled her eyes and that actually got a soft chuckle out of him.

"So." He drew his hand back to his side of the table and smiled a minorly hopeful smile that was again nothing like what she should have gotten from Jason Todd. "What now?"

"Uh, we could just get more coffee." Steph said, sending her eyes roaming about the little café. "This is already a pretty normal type activity."

Jason huffed his features smoothed in his bemusement. "I think I'm regretting this already."

"No takebacksies." Steph repeated and took a huge bite of her muffin.

He did the same, so obviously fighting off another smile, and Steph couldn't have said what that made her feel, or why she liked it, but she thought it better not to question in right then.


End file.
